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Updated: July 8, 2025
He asked for and obtained a rapid concentration of all the available escadrilles, and demanded of them vigorous offensive tactics. To economize and coördinate strength, all the fighting escadrilles at Verdun were grouped under the sole command of Major de Rose. They operated by patrols, sometimes following very distant itineraries, and attacking all the airplanes they met.
The large canvas hangars are surrounded by the house tents of their respective escadrilles; wooden barracks for the men and pilots are in close proximity, and sandwiched in between the encampments of the various units are the tents where the commanding officers hold forth.
There were no blankets and until they were procured the pilots had to curl up in their flying clothes. There were no arrangements for cooking and the Americans depended on the other escadrilles for food. Eight fighting units were located at the same field and our ever-generous French comrades saw to it that no one went hungry.
But there was another period in the Great War in which the grouping of our fighting escadrilles and their employment in offensive movements gave us triumphant superiority in the aërial struggle, and this was the battle of the Somme, particularly during its first three months a splendid and heroic time when our airmen sprang up in the sky, spreading panic and fear, like the knights-errant of La Légende des siècles. Victor Hugo's verses seem to describe them and their vertiginous rounds rather than the too slow horsemen of old: La terre a vu jadis errer des paladins; Ils flamboyaient ainsi que des éclairs soudains, Puis s'évanouissaient, laissant sur les visages La crainte, et la lueur de leurs brusques passages... Les noms de quelques-uns jusqu'
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